In an interview with NPR on his latest New Yorker Article, titled ‘Preparing the battlefield', the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals more striking details of his findings on the aim of the $400 million budgeted US covert operations inside Iran. He provides valuable information on US military preparations to strike the country, on the total expansion of the Bush Administration's executive power, about the US recognition of Iran's overall positive role in Iraq and on the US support for the anti-Iran terrorist organisations Jondollah, PJAK and MEK.

Interesting title and great article . . . He just needs to take it one step further, of course, to include 9/11 itself and not just the aftermath . . . But we're getting there, little by little. It's also not a bad thing that this title plants the "truth commission" idea in many readers' heads . . . --Betsy

When a distinguished American military commander accuses the United States of committing war crimes in its handling of detainees, you know that we need a new way forward.

“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated abuses in Iraq, declares in a powerful new report on American torture from Physicians for Human Rights. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing.

The following statement is written by Congressman Paul about the pending financial disaster. He will introduce this statement as a special order and insert it into the Congressional Record next week. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to debut it first on the Campaign for Liberty blog. It reads as follows:

I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America. The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these long-held concerns, I have days—growing more frequent all the time—when I’m convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast-approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed.

Last summer I got a call from someone who had seen some of our past work. She started off being extremely complimentary about the issues we were bringing to light, marveling at how widely we were able to distribute our short videos to not only inform, but to motivate viewers to take action. She then asked if Brave New Foundation would be interested in taking on a large project to help amplify the stories of a group of Americans whose efforts and sacrifices weren't being acknowledged. She warned me that it would be a difficult task since it only directly affected less than 1% of the US population.

Watch In Their Boots LIVE
tonight at 7pm ETBeing a bit headstrong (even in my middle age), I said that no task was too difficult. If there is an injustice, we could tackle it and help to make it right! But what she wanted was difficult. The task we took on was to tell the stories of servicemembers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.

We start with John Dean, with Ray McGovern co-hosting, then Paul Craig Roberts and wrap with a possible phone in from Moshe Vanunu—Israel’s political prisoner, with commentary by Eileen Fleming on his coming trial.

Okay, the dots are getting SO easy to connect, a literate 5 year old could figure this out . . .

The circumstantial evidence alone is stunning in its transparency. The statistical chances of "coincidence" for the hundreds of factual pieces must be nearing .000000000001, maybe less. : )

I wonder if Jason Leopold accepts 9/11 yet - that elements of our government were involved? I admired his writings and investigative journalism re the Plame affair when he was exclusively, I believe, at truthout.org.

These are the types of writers we need to persuade to look at the evidence, do the research re 9/11. They can help us reach a wider audience that has been primed for the 9/11 truth . . .

If you're at the NJ shore on Friday, July 4th, look for an aerial plane banner with a 9/11 truth message.

This day has renewed meaning for me as I imagine it does for a lot of you.

I was surprised to see this article (with some of its details and comments) in a MSM newspaper today.

Americans are not only being "softened up" for a war or conflict with Iran . . . I think the beneficial byproduct of this and many of the lies of the last 7 years (the entire century+ ?) finally being exposed, with more and more Americans' acceptance of them, is that Americans are also now getting primed for the true story behind 9/11 . . .

If we could "sacrifice" 4,200 troops for oil and 1.2 million Iraqis for oil, could we - I'd rather say "they" - not "sacrifice" 3,000 American citizens?

(We can see how the numbers were minimized that day. If the group behind 9/11 wanted maximum numbers killed that day, the timing of the events would have been later in the day . . . We can see a "humane" aspect to this attack . . . )

As historians ponder George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency, they may wonder how Republicans perfected a propaganda system that could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs.

To understand this extraordinary development, historians might want to look back at the 1980s and examine the Iran-Contra scandal’s “lost chapter,” a narrative describing how Ronald Reagan’s administration brought CIA tactics to bear domestically to reshape the way Americans perceived the world.

That chapter – which we are publishing here for the first time – was “lost” because Republicans on the congressional Iran-Contra investigation waged a rear-guard fight that traded elimination of the chapter’s key findings for the votes of three moderate GOP senators, giving the final report a patina of bipartisanship.

Just a reminder that this Friday, July 4th, if you're at a New Jersey beach, bring a video recorder if you can, and look for a Plane Truth Project aerial banner that will be flying from Cape May up to Sandy Hook with a 9/11 Truth message targeted specifically towards military members, but, I think, good for all.

I'll be on a beach with my family (it's my mother's birthday), getting amateur footage, so I hope others out there who are experts at this will be able to get this on tape. I also hope it's a beautifully clear day . . .

If it's cloudy or rainy, the flight will be rescheduled for the first Saturday or Sunday that has nice weather (nice enough to bring people to the beach). I'm very fortunate to be working with an ethical company!

A military official is quoted as saying Tehran would respond to a confrontation over its nuclear program.

Beirut - The commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said the government might shut down vital oil lanes through the Persian Gulf if the country were attacked by the United States or Israel, according to a newspaper report Saturday.

Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari warned that if there were any confrontation over Iran's nuclear program, Tehran would try to damage Western economies by targeting oil.

289/06/08 "ICH" -- - The White House is currently conducting the same tactic on Iran that worked so well on Iraq. Despite the voluminous evidence that The White House lied and exaggerated to excuse the Iraq invasion, much of the American population (by way of the corporate media) are buying into the same rhetoric they foolishly failed to question only five years ago.

These grave threats against Iran are the culmination of 29 years of resentment. Started in 1979 when a frustrated faction in Iran overthrew the brutal yet obedient American puppet, The Shaw.

The White House is continually asserting that Iran is: a threat to America, a threat to its neighbors, harming Americans in Iraq, supporting terrorism, and illegally pursuing nuclear weapons.